Commonwealth Scholarship Commission

Baroness Northover: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for International Development has made the following Statement.
	The Department for International Development (DfID) will shortly commence the triennial review of its oversight arrangements for the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom (CSC).
	The Government made a commitment regularly to review public bodies, with the aim of increasing accountability for actions carried out on behalf of the state.
	The CSC, which administers the Government's contribution to the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, has been selected by DfID as one of the non-departmental public bodies (NDPBs) for which the review will commence during the second year of the triennial programme (2012-13).
	The review will be conducted in line with relevant Cabinet Office guidance, in two stages.
	The first stage will:
	identify and examine the key functions of the CSC and assess how these functions contribute to the core business of DfID; assess the requirement for these to continue; if continuing, assess how the key functions might best be delivered; if one of these options is continuing delivery through the CSC, then make an assessment against the Government's three tests: technical function; political impartiality; and the need for independence from Ministers.
	If the outcome of stage one is that delivery should continue through the CSC, the second stage of the review will ensure that it is operating in line with the recognised principles of good corporate governance, using the Cabinet Office comply or explain standard approach.
	The outcome will be announced in Parliament within six months of the review commencing.

Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency

Earl Attlee: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport (Patrick McLoughlin) has made the following Ministerial Statement.
	The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has recently run a competition to procure a front office counter service provider for its face-to-face motoring services from next April.
	I can today announce that DVLA will award Post Office Ltd(r) a contract to build on the existing counter operation to provide a wider range of services and better accessibility for motorists. The contract will run for seven years with an option to extend for up to another three years. This contract will allow the Post Office to fully develop better services with the requirements of customers at the heart. Under the contract Post Office Ltd(r) will offer DVLA services at over 4,700 outlets for road tax and vehicle transactions, 750 of which will also cater for driver licensing.
	This new contract provides value for money for the taxpayer resulting in savings of between £13 million and £15 million a year. The contract also gives scope for the Post Office to provide front office counter services for other government departments, to increase efficiencies across government and provide better value for the taxpayer.

Employment: Parental Leave and Flexible Working

Lord Marland: My honourable friend the Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson MP) has made the following Statement.
	The Government believe the UK economy should be supported by a framework of laws that ensures we have a strong and efficient labour market which is flexible, effective and fair. Today the Government are announcing their response to the flexible parental leave and flexible working elements of the modern workplaces consultation. The response details a package of measures that will further enhance the flexibility of the labour market and will allow businesses more freedom in how they manage their staff. These measures will encourage fathers to take a greater role in caring for their babies and enable working families to be able to share caring responsibilities in the earliest stages of a child's life. In addition, we are extending the right to request flexible working to all employees.
	A new system of flexible parental leave
	The new system will allow working parents to take leave in shorter blocks; to intersperse periods of work with periods of leave and to take leave at the same time if they choose to. They will also be able to share leave between them in a way that suits them best. In order to allow concurrency of leave (where the woman is on maternity leave and her partner can be on flexible parental leave at the same time), we propose to enable a woman to specify in advance the date she intends to end her maternity leave and for the remaining leave and pay to become immediately available as flexible leave and pay for her partner to take. This will enable a family to be at home together for a time if they so wish.
	Women with partners where they both meet the qualifying conditions for the flexible parental system will be able to return to work early, or commit to ending their maternity leave on a specific date, and share the untaken balance of maternity leave and pay as flexible parental leave and pay. The length of flexible parental leave will not exceed the balance of untaken maternity leave, and the amount of statutory flexible parental pay will not exceed the balance of untaken statutory maternity pay or maternity allowance available at the point at which the woman returns, or commits to return, to work.
	The 52 weeks of maternity leave currently available will remain in place as the default position for all employed women. Women who are currently eligible to receive statutory maternity pay (SMP) or maternity allowance will continue to be able to do so for 39 weeks.
	We will be providing the right for fathers, or partners of pregnant women, to take unpaid time off work to attend two antenatal appointments with their pregnant partner.
	We will increase the child's age limit on unpaid parental leave deriving from EU legislation from the current five years to 18 years, giving each parent the right to take up to 18 weeks of unpaid parental leave for each child under 18.
	We are making changes to the leave and pay available to adoptive parents to bring it more closely into line with the leave and pay rights available to birth parents. Working couples who adopt will also be able to opt into the flexible parental system in the same way as birth parents if they meet the qualifying conditions. Intended parents of a child born through a surrogacy arrangement who meet the criteria to apply for a parental order will be eligible for statutory adoption leave and pay if they meet the qualifying criteria; and for flexible parental leave and pay if they meet the qualifying criteria.
	Right to request flexible working
	The measures set out in our response will enable many more employees to balance their work and personal commitments. We believe that flexible working will benefit employers as well; employers report that employees who work flexibly are more productive, less likely to take sick leave and more likely to stay with their employers. Additionally we have set out the intention to remove the existing statutory procedure for considering flexible working requests, which can be bureaucratic and costly, replacing it with a duty on employers to consider requests in a reasonable manner. We will set out in a code of practice guidance for employers on how to consider requests and what we mean by reasonable.
	The Government intend to introduce legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows, in order to implement the reforms by 2015.
	Copies of the Modern Workplaces: Flexible Working Government response and the Modern Workplaces: Flexible Parental Leave Government response document have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Patrick Finucane

Baroness Randerson: My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Theresa Villiers) has made the following ministerial Statement.
	I would like to announce that the report of the Patrick Finucane review, chaired by Sir Desmond de Silva QC, will be published during the week of Monday 10 December.
	In my Written Statement to the House on 31 October, I set out the steps that would need to be taken before publication of the Patrick Finucane report. These included a checking process which would enable me to meet the obligations placed on me by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and to safeguard national security. I can confirm that this checking process has now been completed and I have received advice from the checking team which confirms that there is nothing in the report which, if published, could breach Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights by putting the lives or safety of individuals at risk, or put national security at risk. I am therefore satisfied that the report can be published in full and I have advised Sir Desmond de Silva of this.
	The report has not been shown to me or to any other member of the Government, or to any officials except the members of the team which carried out the checking process. I have not been briefed on the contents of the report, nor have any officials other than those in the checking team.
	As with the publication of the Bloody Sunday inquiry, Billy Wright inquiry and Rosemary Nelson inquiry reports, I intend to give advance sight to those who the review has advised are interested parties, to their legal representatives, and to some Members of both Houses.